Back in June, I wrote an article called “What You Can Learn by Watching Competitive Heroes of the Storm.” Then in July, I recapped the July North American Open in a cleverly named “What We Learned from the July North American Open.” And now it’s August, which can only mean one thing: it’s time for the “What We Learned from the AUGUST North American Open!” And because these titles are too long, my editor Vaalia has suggested shortening it to “WWL” instead. (She even shortened this sentence.)

The August Open had the largest prize pool of any Heroes tournament yet with $12,000 going to the winner, Tempo Storm. Tempo Storm completed a dominant summer run with three-peat wins in the June, July, and August Opens, without dropping a single map. They will be joined by Cloud9, COGnitive, compLexity, and Murloc Geniuses as the North American teams in the upcoming Americas Championship to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 19 and 20.

As with last month, this article will focus on the games from the Round of 8, because that’s where the top teams faced off against each other. We were able to glean some insight into the top tier of heroes on the NA scene, as well as some interesting team compositions that you can hopefully apply to your own games. As a note, Kharazim was banned from the tournament because he was so new, and Battlefield of Eternity was not played due to a bug. Look forward to seeing both Kharazim and the new Infernal Shrines map in upcoming tournaments, including PAX and the Americas Championship in the next few weeks.

The August stats were compiled by Dthehunter and can be found here.
The July stats were compiled by CyaSteve and can be found here.




Let’s start by looking at the four heroes who were picked or banned in all 31 games. With 100% pick rate, the professional players obviously think these heroes are a cut above the rest.

The Double Z’s

Zeratul and Zagara were once again involved in every game, often getting picked or banned in the early stages of the draft. This month they were actually allowed through the draft more often, as teams opted to focus their bans on shutting down potent combos instead. The second bans of Zeratul continued, but he did see more action than last month and continues to be a nuisance diving into teams to take out weak heroes.

Zagara brings insane amounts of map visibility with her creep tumors through the Endless Creep talent. She also brings added synergy with her Devouring Maw, which can be paired with Leoric’s Entomb or Jaina’s Ring of Frost to completely shut down the enemy team. Expect both these heroes to continue to be at the top of team’s lists as they all extremely well-rounded by offering high damage, good movement, and a strong map presence with great heroics that can swing team fights.

Ignite Was Merely a Setback...

Kael’thas was reworked last week as part of the Kharazim patch, and many feared that he would suffer a similar fate as ETC or Diablo, both of whom practically disappeared after tuning. Well his 100% involvement rate and a huge jump in ban rates shows that he may actually be more dangerous because of his new Chain Bomb build. Taking Fission Bomb at 7 and Chain Bomb at 13 makes his Living Bomb scorch through enemy teams when they are clumped up for team fights. His improved Gravity Lapse, including the level 4 talent Nether Wind, makes his stun much more powerful, and we even saw Pyroblast taken several times. Overall his damage increases more steadily than it used to when he was weak in the early game then became godly at 16.

The Amazing, Leaping Spider Man!

The previous three heroes were all 100% involved in the July Open, but an old favorite has spider leaped his way back onto the scene. After being played in a mere five games in July (all losses), the witch doctor came back with a Vengeance this month. I mentioned in last month’s article that Nazeebo’s spider build was showing promise and he could see more play soon, but thanks to the recent patch he also saw buffs to his Zombie Walls and most importantly, his Ravenous Spirit. Players who have been following Heroes since the Alpha may remember that Nazeebo’s Ravenous Spirit used to single handedly win team fights by charging through the enemy team while Nazeebo sat out of sight channeling. The increase to its attack range and damage saw it used throughout the Round of 8. Teams had to make sure they had a stun or silence that could reach him, otherwise team fights after 10 could end disastrously.

Jaina’s Cooling Off

For several months Jaina has been the top flight Assassin in both the tournament and online scene. It seems the Meta is slowly shifting away from her as she continues to see small nerfs, most recently the removal of the slow her Summon Water Elemental causes. As Solidjake pointed out during the cast, the removal of both her Sprint (in the Leoric patch) and this change have made her much less viable as a flanker, which was what made her so strong earlier in the summer. She is still a very strong hero, but she was ignored entirely in eight drafts, and only banned twice, showing that teams aren’t even that afraid of her.

It’s not all bad news for Jaina fans though; her Ring of Frost is seeing some love with a reduced cooldown and an upcoming fix to the buggy nature of its activation. We saw it used several times in the tournament, and it does combo well with other AOE heroics. She’s far from finished, but she has taken a small step back. Cloud9 experimented with Icy Veins in the Finals to give her more burst, so perhaps teams will experiment with newer builds in the coming weeks.

Triple Specialist Comps

WIth the return of Nazeebo and a big jump in popularity for Abathur, there was some interesting Specialist play this weekend. Cloud9 ran triple Specialist compositions in four of their games and favored a heavy push style that forced their opponents to constantly defend. Fan “Fan” Yang in particular played a very aggressive Abathur, which was far different than his run in Heroes of the Dorm where he played one of the scariest Illidans ever seen. The recent undocumented change that reduced the cooldown on Ultimate Evolution let Fan clone his teammates and help swing team fights or continue to push with no risk of death. In an early game against Panda Global, Fan repeatedly cloned Zagara and pushed down Keeps with no regard for his own life.

Ultimately Cloud9 was unable to get their cheesey triple Specialist style to work against Tempo Storm later on in the Upper Bracket, so if you’re interested in learning how to stop an aggressive Murky-Abathur push team, check out those games. When the two teams met again in the Finals, Cloud9 went back to a more well-rounded comp using only Zagara in that match.

Speaking of Abathur...

Abathur went from from four games played in July to nearly 20 in August. This was largely due to the buff on his Ultimate Evolution, granting him the freedom to take part in team fights while maintaining his traditional role as lane soaker and pusher. Interestingly, his presence had an effect on Illidan since the’re known to be a deadly combination. Illidan went from barely played or banned in July to 45% involvement in August, and was even banned in nearly a third of games played. When Blizzard removed Illidan’s Unstoppable buff from his Dive, he was easily countered with stuns, but the shift away from the mage meta coupled with the improvements to Abathur have him diving back into the scene. Expect to see more Illidan play with the addition of Kharazim, who synergizes incredibly well with aggressive melee assassins. Oh, and Kharazim also pairs very well with Abathur, in case you wanted more burst and sustain for your dives.

Melee Assassins without Kharazim

One hero that had some quality of life changes in the recent patch is the Queen of Blades herself, Kerrigan. She saw a bit more play this month, but was hardly a game changer as professional players are used to sidestepping out of her Primal Grasp. CompLexity’s Phillip “Jaximus” Carter showcased some strong play using her Ravage build that took a game off of Cloud9 in the Lower Bracket finals. Overall teams still prefer the range damage, as while Kerrigan saw more action, The Butcher disappeared from this month’s Open. In July, he was involved in over half of the drafts, but was replaced with the likes of Kerrigan, Illidan, and the Specialists this month.

The melee Assassins had a hard time establishing a foothold against the strong ranged damage and CC that leaves them vulnerable when they dive too far in the current meta. Right now, the most dominant melee hero is Zeratul who is built entirely around getting in and out of team fights quickly, and most other melee do not have that escapability. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for the dangerous melee players on every team; as mentioned in the introduction, Kharazim was banned in this tournament, and he has great synergy with most melee since he can follow them in on dives, keep them healed up, and use his Divine Palm to bring them back to full similar to Rehgar’s Ancestral Healing. The melee game is about to receive a helping hand!

Leoric Took Over the Warrior Meta

Last month in the July Open WWL, I mentioned that the Warrior choices in the current Meta had gotten pretty stale, and hoped that Leoric might change things up a bit. Boy howdy, did he! Leoric was in 30 of 31 drafts and he was actually banned slightly more than Johanna, who appeared in the same number of drafts. Both heroes are clearly in the top tier of tanks for similar reasons: excellent wave clear, insane durability, and big engage potential. Johanna clears waves with help from her Knight Takes Pawn talent (which has great synergy with Azmodan players looking to max out their Taste for Blood stacks) while Leoric’s Skeletal Swing doesn’t need any talents to wreck lanes. Leoric’s got amazing push potential because of his lane sustain, and Cloud9 even used him as part of their push heavy comps. His self-healing and Undying talent keep him on the field more than any other Warrior, even after the recent changes to make lengthen his death timers.

Teams are also finding interesting ways to use his Entomb Heroic to set up massive traps for their enemies by combining it with Heroics like Ring of Frost, Void Prison, Devouring Maw, or just the raw AOE damage of a Jaina or Kael’thas. March of the Black King is a perfectly fine Heroic, but it doesn’t set up the same big plays as Entomb, and it is easy to dodge with quick reflexes or movement abilities.

Leoric knocked Muradin down a bit in drafts, but he’s a solid third option for teams, while Tyrael, Anub’arak, and Arthas are still situational picks. The double Warrior Meta that was starting to appear in North America seems to have lost steam, as it was only tried twice. There are just too many good damage options to sacrifice one of your picks on an extra tank. In a recent Reddit Q&A Blizzard designers stated they will be looking at the older tanks like ETC, Diablo, and Stitches to help bring more balance to the Warrior role, and there are two new ones on the horizon with Rexxar and Artanis.

That’ll Do, Li Li, That’ll Do.

Another thing I discussed last month was the presence of the “Support Ban Meta,” where teams would try to choke out their opponents by drafting and banning Supports since there were so few viable options. Interestingly, even though Kharazim was not yet available to draft, teams seemed to abandon this strategy and the three top healers saw their ban rates halved. Instead teams opted to shift their bans to focus on Kael’thas, whose ban rate doubled this month, and Illidan, who was dangerous with the presence of Abathur. What that meant is only once did a team (Luminosity) get “stuck” playing Li Li, who held her own last month, but is still a tier below Uther, Malfurion and Rehgar. Overall we saw teams drafting the Support they wanted based on their team comps with melee based teams frequently taking Uther, and mage teams built more for the sustain of Malfurion, and Rehgar being a middle ground between the two.

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I expect Kharazim to change the healer Meta up as we go forward, despite lukewarm initial reviews. Tempo Storm’s Wade “Dreadnaught” Penfold particularly is very high on the monk healer and we could see him used either as a solo support by very skilled players or as supplemental healers like Tyrande or Tassadar. Speaking of the pseudo Supports, they both were less popular this month with Tassadar dropping the most of any hero from 24 drafts in July to a mere 6 in August. Blizzard addressed these heroes as well in their recent Reddit Q&A saying they would look at making them more viable as solo healers, despite them having a current role as hybrid damage dealers.

Stray Observations

• We continue to see a sharp line between the top Heroes teams in NA and the rest of their competition, but the new teams are showing promise and bringing some fresh faces to the Heroes scene. Tempo Storm is clearly a cut above Cloud9 still as, even when they were trailing in the Grand Finals, they still came back and won both games to finish the Open sweep. Similarly, Cloud9 is still a cut above their competition as they only really ever lose to Tempo Storm. Right now you have to consider compLexity as the third best team with outstanding play in all 3 NA Opens, and taking a game off Cloud9 in this Open as well as beating Tempo Storm in the recent Kings of the Storm VII tournament. Meanwhile, COGnitive thrives on melee aggression so this Kharazim patch might see them flourish, and Murloc Geniuses had very close games even when they lost, so don’t count out any of these five teams in the Americas Championship.
  
  
• I was pretty sad to see that Luminosity Gaming (previously Goon Squad, Inc.) had to forfeit their first round match against Tempo Storm because of a storm that knocked out power. Last month Luminosity had two tremendous games against Tempo Storm, and in their one match in the August Round of 8 they showed how exciting the can be. They may not have qualified for the Road to BlizzCon, but they are a team to watch because their playstyle has a way of making even good teams look bad, and they are not afraid to try different builds to make things happen. We saw a Divine Storm on Uther in their first game against COGnitive, and I hope we get to see more of Luminosity in future tournaments.
  

• When the Kharazim patch notes came out, there was a lot of buzz on forums and Reddit that the changes would mean Sgt. Hammer’s return to the Meta. We got our wish this weekend, as she did see action in two games. Kappa Wolves’ Tanner “Hocfoo” Locke dusted off the siege tank in two games, including a win over Panda Global that knocked them from the tournament. It remains to be seen if she will truly is back, but I have already been seeing more of her in online play, and I’m not looking forward to seeing her Hover Siege Mode pushing slowly down my team’s lanes.
  
  
• I actually participated in the earlier rounds of the August Open with a few friends as Turbo Cyborg Ninjas, and we actually made it to the Round of 32 before being crushed to smithereens. We just played for the fun of it, and because I knew that we only had to make it through 2 rounds to qualify for some sweet Battle.net cash ($300). We beat our first opponents, Team Saldd, and our second opponents no-showed, which is exactly the strategy we were hoping to employ. It was a lot of fun to participate, and I highly encourage everyone to try making a team and signing up for an Open the next time Blizzard or anyone else has one. I learned that no matter how much I play, watch, and write about Heroes, I will never be even half as good as the worst professional team, but it was still exciting to actually have FourCourtJester and GillyweedSC2 casting a game of me and my friends. And they didn’t even make fun of how bad we were as much as they could have! You can watch the replays here and here if you want to laugh at me.
  
  
• Again, please show some love to Dthehunter for compiling all these awesome stats from the August Open. He does it for the love of eSports! Follow him on Twitter @Dthehunter2510, and his internet fame will get him to keep up the great work!
  
  
• While you’re at it, follow me on Twitter @Xingua and tweet me when you learn new things from watching competitive Heroes. I’d like to get the TeamLiquid.net and Heroes community more involved in these, because there’s always new compositions or strategies that I miss.
  
  
• Editor’s Note: Add my awesome editor Kristine too. She’s super cool and makes everything I write look better: @Vaalia_. Even when she’s super slow at it!
  
  
• Now that you learned some new things about Heroes from last weekend’s August Open, make sure to check out the huge Masters Gaming Arena at PAX Prime over the weekend, which will be the first major international competition with most of the world’s top Heroes teams. That means we will finally see the different regional Metas crash into each other and see who ends up on top.
  
  Check out TeamLiquid.net's preview here.